Should there be a major third party in United States politics?

I have always felt that a third party has been needed in the United States, and I was just wondering what everyone else thinks. I was just saying this because when you get down to all today, it really is only about voting for the names and the party names than it is voting for people who have different agendas. I would like to see the Libertarian Party become that third party due to my anarchist tendencies; however, I do realize that some form of government will always exist -because theoretically anarchy is a form of government- and I would like to see a government that focuses on defending the individual and the nation, keep law and order, and provide a stable currency. That's just me though, I could be wrong and I welcome your opinion.

And if I did anything wrong, please excuse me for this is my first post here.

I think if we had a third party that actually stood a chance of being a threat to the the other two, it might create some incentive for the two current parties to focus more on what the people actually want. Democrats and Republicans have become slack and they don't keep their election promises, because they know that voters are just going to vote for one party anyway without actually putting thought into it. That's how it is in my state. The republicans have been in the majority since WWII, and they just do whatever the fuck they want to because they know that no matter what, they will still get re-elected. And they do. They waste everyone's time passing 'message' bills that don't actually change or do anything, and they pass bills that they know are unconstitutional just to send a message to the federal government and then proceed to wast millions of dollars defending these unconstitutional bills in court, knowing that they are going to loose. The people here do nothing but bitch about their shennanigans, but come election time they never fail to either vote straight republican or not vote at all. I think the problem with politics today isn't so much the parties, but the people who vote for them.

I agree that this is a great response, but I do have to say that my grandmother had been a DEM for as long as I can remember and this past election she voted REP. She is 92 this year. So that goes to show that there are SOME who pay attention to what's going on. And it was not because the DEM choice was "black".

Well, of course there are people who actually think things through before they vote. My point was that a depressingly large number of people will just vote for one party or another without putting any thought into who the candidates actually are. Do they really know anything about the names on the ballot, or do they just vote straight DEM/REP without even being able to name most of the people they just voted for? I did my best to look up all the candidates when I voted for the first time. It was hard, there were alot of them, so I understand that you can't know everything about everyone, but is it really so hard to do a quick google search so you know you're not voting for a complete moron? I also think candidates need to do a better job promoting themselves. A small website with information about your family life isn't actually very helpful. But again, most of them just assume that people's vote will be based on the little R or D next to their names, and not on the substance of what they say.

I think you hit the nail on the head...."there are some who pay attention to what's going on." It's been my belief, for quite some time, that the majority of the electorate care more about things like American Idol than our own system of government. So...he who can put more money into getting his name out there is the one that will be voted on.

I believe the parties are relatively corporate-run, with little heed to the common citizen. Voting means little to me, since it's rare that I'd like either candidate. On the other hand, about 90% of Republicans are young Earth creationists, so I might lean toward the Democrats, who are at least slightly lower in religious stupidity. A secular party would do nicely, if we had more than just the population of this site to vote for them =/

There already are several parties. I believe the Tea Party's largely responsible for the movement that caused large Democratic losses in 2010 elections. I hope that the Tea Party can sponsor a candidate for 2012 because it would split the conservative vote and make it easier for Obama to win.

In the 2000 presidential election in Florida, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes, which led to claims that he was responsible for Gore's defeat. Nader, both in his book Crashing the Party and on his website, states: "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all." (which would net a 13%, 12,665 votes, advantage for Gore over Bush.)

The Republican party has gotten more and more extreme. It's hard to find much to agree with there. Beginning with Clinton the Democratic party has shifted somewhat to the right (center), which is something I've also done over the last decade or two. The extremes of both the right (ultra-conservative) and left (ultra-liberal) turn me off.

There are many alternative parties to choose from but none of them have put together a platform that I can prefer over the Democrats. If one came along . . . I'd surely give it a serious look.

In New Zealand, I think anyone citizen can start their own party or run for MP. We have National (Commercial based), Labour (Social welfare), The Greens (enviromental), Maori (represents the Indigenous people), and various other parties that serve other needs. The two big ones are National and Labour and occupy different ends of the spectrum but general try to achive the same thing by different means. The system works well although we've almost had the complete collaspe of the Maori party due to the actions of an unsavoury member. Parties make alliances to make up for seats as generally the main parties do not get the required votes to stand on their own; generally there is more variety that the two party system in america does not allow.e

This is from Chris Weigant's blog - Exceptional Democracy (April 2010). The article is interesting on many levels, and while it doesn't really answer the Big Question --

If America is truly supposed to be exceptional in all things, why do other countries -- almost without exception -- decide our governmental structure isn't really for them, when it comes time to choose?